The Tower
by slowlistener
Summary: A Sneasel finding, walking to, and then climbing a tower. Nothing else.
1. 1

And so it will be.

I close my claws around the beams of my window and look out unto the forest and that tower. I would go to the tower, I think. I would climb and look out upon the village and I would feel progress. I would climb until I could breathe in the heavy clouds from a balcony and exhale relief. I would climb and dance on the tops of the cloudy blanket and laugh and smile, a child in a dream. I would grow large and powerful and grace the tip of that tower with my finger and laugh again. I would crown myself victorious and sit on a throne of stars, ruling over the dirt, the water, the air. I would have made the world my subject and would judge it playfully.

That's how it always went in my head. My warm mind eating the landscapes, that tower, the fresh air, coming up with stories of rending the skies. I had the mind of a child, but the means to pursue my ambitions. Releasing the window from my grasp, I repeat the words I did every day. I always meant those words, but today they were a promise. I wash the sleep off my face and look at the Sneasel in the mirror. This is not just me, this is the Sneasel I'm keeping my promise to. I wouldn't let them down. I throw myself out into the rest of the village.

During this time of day the market is busy. Every village has a trade, and ours is woodworking. We design and build most of the furniture in the neighboring villages, using the forest around us. The lumber branch supplies the wood. They section a part of the forest off and then begin stripping it, collecting the logs. The lumber branch is also responsible for replanting after they've stripped an area of the forest. They transport the wood to the crafting branch, so they can cut the wood into their designs. It is a common stereotype that workers in the lumber branch are brutes, and the workers in the crafting branch are cowards. These things aren't accepted as facts for good reasons. You should never assume someone's muscles will starve their brain.

The market smells of wood chips and sawdust. I pass through, ogling the merchants and craftsmen. My family had wanted me to settle down in the crafting branch and make a living for myself. Carving wood is the easiest job for Sneasels. Each one of us is adept enough with our claws. The thought of sitting here all my life, clawing away at blocks of wood, rotting on a stool filled me with disgust. The outside was a calling for me to experience the far reaches, to see things my parents could not ever teach me about. They could tell me about what a river was, but they could never convey what it was like to stand at the brook. It's not possible for them to teach me the feeling of solitude the brook granted me. They could not keep me from abandoning my duties and walking to the brook. That's the same brook where I hatched my plan.

I had been gazing at a patch of the landscape before I ever noticed it. Coated in cloud, painted into the background of our village, was a tall and thin tan spire. It ran up too high to see the tip of it. Thin pathways suspended in the air adorned the tower, each one holding a balcony shaped like a gazebo. Nobody ever told me about the tower. Either it was too unimportant for them to mention it to me, or there was a reason people didn't talk about it. If you weren't where I was, looking at that same sky, you would have gone your entire life without seeing it. The knowledge taunted me. I couldn't go a single conversation without wanting to bring up the tower, but I withheld it, thinking they would look at me like a child. I thought about nothing but the tower for the weeks to come, if I should go there, if I could get to the top. There was no reason to get to the top other than my sheer will to do so. Then today came, and I told myself that it would be better to die touching the stars than to let time roll me over and pierce my heart.


	2. 2

And so it will be.

I say my "hello"s and leave the market. I check my belongings, making sure I'm well well equipped for my task. I packed 3 days worth of food, bread, berries, cloth, and plenty of drinking water. The canister of water rattles against the rings on my satchel, which I don't notice once I reach the river. Looking at the river now feels different. It's not something for me to contemplate, it's an obstacle I need to overcome. The stream offers no thought, just challenge. I pace down the edge of the river, looking for a suitable length of it to try and cross. I settle on a shallow part of the river, where the water rarely washes over the tops of the rocks in the stream. The rocks are dry, refusing to shine like the rest of them, and I use these portions of rock to make my advance.

I plant my paw onto the first stone, trying to bury my leg into position. The edges of the rocks are too slippery for me to grip with my extended claws, so I plan out each of my steps long in advance. Step by step, stone by stone, I make my way towards the middle of the stream. The mist of the white wash tickles my ankles, standing me upright. Were I to fall now, I could lose all my food, my water, and worst, I could injure myself. I'd never make it back home if I tore myself open on these rocks. I focus on something else, something static, unchanging. I focus on the tower in the distance. As I move across the river, the tower never seems to move according to me. It's too far right now, too large. The tower carves my goal into stone, and I put my uncertainties to rest. I take a leap, bounding onto a step, and dig a sharp edge of stone into the heel of my paw.

I let out a shrill cry. I don't know what to think of it, so I list all the different kinds of wood. There's elm, oak, pine, birch, birch, birch. I can't breathe. I let the weight of my foot sink into the wound. I can't take too much pressure off of the paw, or else I could risk slipping and falling into the water. I jerk my head from side to side, distracting myself from the pain. Water laps up at the rock, washing the blood into the stream, until it disperses and becomes part of the river. I watch the pink froth flow away, clutch my bag, and move my other paw to the next stone. Turning my weight twists the edge of the rock inside me, but I refuse to scream. I accept what the stone has done to me and grit myself. I plant my other foot and immediately shift all my weight onto it. I can feel my flesh close in on the wound as I take it off the sharp rock, and I leave a faint red streak. The rest of the rocks are no challenge, as if the river is apologizing for what it's done. In time I lay on the riverbed, rubbing mud into my cut.

After packing the wound with enough clay, I sling a length of cloth against it, making a bandage. I would let the mud stay in the cut until the sun had dried it, keeping me from getting an infection. If my foot were the become infected, I wouldn't bear to make it back across the river and home again. The treetops covered most of the tower now that I was back in the forest, but I still knew where to go. With each step the mud crept inside me more and more, until it felt like just another part of my paw. The walk is serene, slight inclines here and there, but nothing that could ruin my plan. I take a seat against a tree and eat a bit of bread and berry, resting my legs. The forest air fills my lungs in gales, and I can feel my cool breath race down my body. I pick some gnash from my teeth with my claws. I made a commitment to this cause, and the wound in my foot is keeping me to my word. The dull pain keeps me sobered enough to keep walking towards the tower.

After an hour, the sun has hardened the clay enough for me to remove it in a single piece. The edges of the shard are smooth like cut glass, and I can see slight imperfections where the mud pressed into my flesh. I think about minerals filling in the carcasses of dead Pokemon, creating perfect replicas. I pour some of my water over the wound and reapply the bandage. The shard sits in my bag now, and when I reach for my food I graze it with my fingers and feel a dead part of me.


	3. 3

And so it will be.

The gash in my paw hasn't bled since I took out the shard of mud, but I keep the bandage on in case it reopens. I don't notice that I walk with a slight hobble unless I focus on it. I'm still in high moods. Slight injuries won't serve as warnings. I graze my claws against the trees as I pass them by, throwing jaunty hops towards the tower. The canister of water floats in the air and then falls down towards my hip with every bound. I take mental note of every fern and bush in the forest and sing it's praises without words. I look up to these harmless things, living without a need for purpose. No one can berate something as innocent as a fern. If I had no ears, there would be no reason to order me around. Yelling at a deaf person is pointless, but yelling at a person who won't listen is somehow acceptable. What's the purpose of punishing someone in the hopes that they'll commit to something, if they never end up committing? The outcome won't change, and what you've committed is pointless violence. These aren't things I'm able to express well to my family. Excuses in their minds, a stand against tyranny in mine.

My thought stops when I notice the disappearance of the trees around me. The forest opens into a wide clearing, and I can see now that the tower is much closer than I had thought. It's late enough now that the tower is cutting straight through the sun, through the middle. It struck me as an odd coincidence, then I thought that it was intentional. The builders of the tower might have designed it so it would line up that way. At the top of the tower you would have a perfect view of the sun at mid-noon, assuming the top of the tower was above the cloud-line. You could also measure time. The balconies branching from the tower are obvious, highlighted by the glow of the sun behind them. Counting them up from the bottom, you can make a notation for what hour of the day it was, based on which balconies the sun is touching. The tower only aligns with the sun if you're walking from my village. The designers of the tower must have been from my village.

I decide that now is as good a time, and here is as good a place as any to rest. Across the clearing there are large stones piercing the ground. I find one with a suitable angle for my neck and line the bottom of my bag with my extra bandages, for me to rest my head on. I stuff the bag in the corner between the stone and the grass, and lay myself down, facing the tower. I think to myself as the sun climbs down the length of the tower, watching it make it's paces. I start to make stories about how the tower came to be, who constructed it, why. The tower would have been an enormous effort, so for the people in my village to ignore it means that it's no longer an achievement. I'd imagine the Pokemon who constructed the tower also created the village. I never payed enough attention to the village's history to know exactly when that was. I wouldn't be able to gauge what that amount of time means, anyways. Life then might have been different, or it could have been all the same.

The tower looks like it's built out of stone, so it could be that our village was an offshoot from a mining village at first. There's no other way we could have gotten the stone to build such an enormous structure. We've dedicated ourselves to processing wood. The founders must have been masons of some sort, architects, chiselers. Stone-workers. They'd draw out elaborate measurements in a workshop together. "That would never work! It should be like this," they would say to one another. The tower keeps them together, though. The tower might have been the one thing keeping them in the village, developing it. The tower has been without purpose since then. The village ignored the tower for too long, so called out to me to give it a new purpose. Being climbed gives the tower purpose. Climbing the tower gives me purpose. The tower and I complete each other. I close my eyes, feeling the red eye of the sun guarding me. The sun then joins me.


	4. 4

And so it will be.

Morning comes. The sun behind me casts onto my paws, keeping them warm. The tower is lit like a candle, or a fuse. I roll to my side and stretch, shaking the sleep off of me. The dew on the grass clings to my fur. I leap upright with great enthusiasm and pull my bag up with me. The field is beautiful. The chorale of the sun's light, striking each rock like instruments, lighting up the mist of dew floating above the grass. I stand, waiting for something to happen, but nothing happens. Nothing needs to happen right now. I decide what happens when I want to. I move forward, pushing into the forest next to the tower.

I feel like I'm still in a dream. This whole thing feels like a dream, being away from the village. I feel now more than ever that I, and only I, can decide what I will do today. There is no schedule when I am without time, and I cannot make plans with the people that aren't around me. Each crashing of leaves and branches beneath my feet is a declaration of the direction I intend to go. I am telling the tower of my visit, and the tower is accepting, open-doored, waiting for me. The warmth of the sun presses against my back in the spots where it stabs though the treetops, urging me forward. The tower looks much closer now, enough that I am more aware of it's height than ever. I can feel it in the way I need to strain my neck upwards to greet it. The balconies cast shadows on the stem of the tower. I would love to see this morning sun from up there.

The trees open up once more, what I stand in front of confuses me. I had been expecting it all along, yet it still strikes me. It's the base of the tower, and a doorway. The light peeks into the doorway, revealing an overgrowth of vines and moss. They did abandon this tower, I think. Neglect hasn't torn it down just yet, but it has made it's presence known. A large slab of rotted wood near the entrance tells me there was a door here at some time. I became sympathetic towards the tower. The thoughts I had about the tower back in the village were rude. I am no longer here to conquer or defeat the tower, I am here to appreciate it. I feel the heavy air inside the tower asking me inside, and I comply.

Tracing up the walls of the tower is a single spiraling staircase, and above me is a floor. I follow the stairs up with my eyes, meeting them at the top. Windows punch through the wall, letting the sun behind me trace images of them onto the wall of the tower. Any furniture that was once here is now gone. The vines inside the tower climb up the staircase, but never reach the floor above me. I could achieve more than those vines. I do not fault them for trying, though. We share the same goal. The moss has grown through the floor enough for there to be no real difference between outside and inside for my paws. It looks real, I think. It is real, but part of my mind still wants me to repeat it to myself. I start to climb.

The steps feel strong under my weight, even after all these years without use. I press down at them, hoisting myself upwards. I can feel the top of the tower above my head, into the clouds. It's only been a few steps, but from out one of the windows I can see the tops of the trees. It's a taste of what's to come. Trees, villages, clouds. Soon all beneath me. The tower is my partner in ruling this world. It feels wrong to see of it as an instrument. It has taught me much more than a sword would ever teach a warrior. I stop at the next window and lean out of it, resting my head on my arms. I wave and yell at nothing in particular. I can no longer see the village, but I am not worried about getting lost. I don't know if going back to the village is worth it. I'm not lost right now, because I'm right where I should be. I breathe a body of wind into myself and sing my praises with my full voice.

"I am not destined to do anything! I am destined to do everything! I am everything!"


	5. 5

And so it will be.

I straighten myself, confused. The words rang in my head, as if someone had just said them to me. If I did say those words, I must have stolen them from someone else. I pat myself, seeing if I'm still here, or if some other Pokemon had somehow taken my place. The question settles, and I continue up the stairs. My chest feels light, enough to lift me up the staircase, keeping me aloft. Each sound of my steps circles around the walls of the tower, climbing up with me. Dampened spirals of sound, circling around me. I'm dizzy, but not disoriented. I know where I am. The stairs lead me up to the next floor, and I see much of the same, but with no overgrowth. I had won the race with nature, nothing to celebrate.

I let me momentum guide me, and I reach 3 more floors before I find an exit on the 5th floor. I hadn't been looking out of the windows much, so it startles me to find that the balcony the door leads to is well above the ground. I clasp my paw around the banister of the strip of balcony and run it down until I reach the platform at the end of it. The still-morning sun is brushing it's light against the backs of the trees. Had I been here hours ago, I could have seen myself sleeping peacefully in that clearing full of stones. It fills me with joy to know that I used to be a part of this view, but sad to know that no one would have been able to see it. I don't know anyone that would have cared as much as I do. I remember the other balconies, and waste no time climbing the stairs to reach them.

Each balcony feels like a new view, even though I'm looking at much of the same. I don't see each individual tree any more, just a forest. I can feel the curve of the planet with my eyes, and spin around to trace it, only for the tower to interrupt me. I giggle at the thought of the tower startling me, as if it has sneaked behind me while I was admiring the view. If I had arms big enough, I would embrace it. I run towards it anyways, and disappear inside of it, letting it embrace me instead. I feel like I never left home, my house had just grown much taller. I laugh up the stairs. I eat all the views. My body grows warm. I drop my satchel. I don't need it. Each view is more of my planet. I feel lighter. I'm breathing much lighter. Less air. I'm in clouds. I breathe them. I breathe nothing. Less air. I'm trembling. Without notice, I'm cold.

I'm climbing. I'm on all my paws. I'm leaving scratches in the stone. The stones leave cuts on my belly. I'm bleeding. I can't go down. I would fall. I need to see the top. My claws are chipping. I'm pulling myself by my chin. There's a new balcony. It's a distraction. More stairs. More floors. Less air. No clouds. Windows. Purple sky. Stars without night. Maybe it is night. No thought. Uses air. Rippling mind. Crippling ache. Dead parts, dying parts. No dying. Becoming other. Sun on body. At the top. Impossible view. Cloud-ground. Cloud-body. Purple-white. Bulbs. Veins. Waves. Birch. I found something. It killed me. "Now-"

_Slumping against the banister, the Sneasel looked out upon the view he promised himself.. The downy white clouds blanketed the planet, as if they had been knitted just for him to admire them. He thought about the warmth of his blanket at home, but only wanted the warmth, not the blanket. He twisted his head upwards, and admired the stars dotting the sky. They looked so sweet, as if they were made from the finest hewn sugar. If he had the energy he would've reached up his arm and plucked one out of the air and had himself a last meal. He let the tower pull him onto the floor, where he lay breathing nothing, but not completely dead. The sheer will to experience his own death kept him thinking._

_In his mind, he had a silent conversation with the voice that he found at the base of the tower._


	6. 6

"Was this really worth it?"

"You ask that as if I know what anything is worth to you. You went through this. You could have stopped at any point and gone home, but you didn't. Obviously the journey here was worth something to you. Would you have rather died staring at a workbench?"

"You're right. This was worth it."

"If you say it is, then it is. You figured this out on your way here. The only things worth anything to you are the things that you decided upon. If you thought their money was worth anything, you would have settled down, but you decided that personal fulfillment was worth more than any physical object. The tower wasn't worth anything in gold, but it was worth it to you in the achievement. Everything else is a chore, but this was a duty for you. I respect that."

"Did this have to be my duty?"

"Absolutely not. You're the writer of your own story, and you decided to write yourself off. You gave yourself a noble death, the death of a warrior. There was no dragon to slay, but you've slain it anyways. You didn't get out unscathed, you never do. You all want to go down vanquishing something. It's odd, but I can't step in now."

"So if I wanted to live my life in peace?"

"Why not?"

"Corrupting the hearts of others, running an empire?"

"You don't need to make it sound bad. There's no difference between those two. Some people do some things, and others do differently. No one Pokemon is any more guilty than the ones that they judge. All is lost when you either let yourself die, or are killed by the purpose of another Pokemon."

"Seems pointless"

"If anything, it's the opposite. There's no limit to the points in this world, because everyone makes their own. Many Pokemon go through different points in their lifespan. You decided that this one point was the one you would so graciously impale yourself on. It was impressive. If anyone saw it, they would probably write about it."

"I could have done anything"

"And so it would have been."

"And so it will be."

"Not any more it won't. You created this death. You created the thing that killed you, confront it with your entire self."

"I thought I had control over my purpose?"

"Once you've dedicated yourself to a noble death, there's nothing else to control. It's the smart thing to do, killing yourself like this. Only a few realize it, and almost none of them are as young as you."

"Will they know I killed myself?"

"I'm here in the tower with you, I wouldn't know what they're thinking."

"She's worried about me."

"After seeing this happen, I'm worried too."

"And so it will be."

"And so it would have been."

And so it is.

* * *

"Hey yo yo yo yo yo  
I need an empire to overthrow.  
You make me wish for a more dangerous life  
So I could show you about self-sacrifice

Say yes yes yes yes yes  
Say no no no to a natural death  
I'd rather give my life to god-as-man  
Than have to line up at the bank again."

-Owen Pallett


End file.
